1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and, in particular, to manufacturing parts. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to increasing lubrication of the interface of a tool and a sheet of material during incremental sheet forming.
2. Background
Oftentimes, aircraft parts may be manufactured in limited runs or numbers. For example, one or two parts may be created as a prototype for testing. As another example, a small number of parts may be manufactured for an aircraft that is no longer in production. With these types of parts, incremental sheet metal forming may be used to manufacture aircraft parts. Incremental sheet metal forming may be used to manufacture parts more cheaply and/or quickly than other techniques.
For example, without limitation, with incremental sheet metal forming, a part may be manufactured in a manner to reduce tooling costs. Further, incremental sheet metal forming may be useful when parts may be needed only in limited numbers and/or for prototype testing.
In manufacturing parts, incremental sheet metal forming may be used to create a shape for a part from a sheet of material. Incremental sheet metal forming may be used with sheet metal to form a part. For example, sheet metal may be formed using a round-tipped tool, stylus, and/or some other suitable type of tool.
This tool may be attached to a computer numerical control machine, a robot arm, and/or some other suitable system to shape the sheet metal into the desired shape for the part. The tool may make indentations, creases, and/or other physical changes or inconsistencies into the sheet metal that may follow a contour for the desired part. This contour may be defined using a tool on which the stylus presses the sheet metal material.
Further, incremental sheet metal forming may be used to produce complex shapes from various materials. This type of process may provide easy part modification. For example, a part may be modified by changing the model of the part without requiring retooling or new dies.
Incremental sheet metal forming may be performed on a number of different types of sheet metal materials. For example, without limitation, incremental sheet metal forming may be performed on aluminum, steel, titanium, and/or other suitable metals.
When a stylus contacts the surface of a sheet of material, such as sheet metal, the sheet metal material may deform in an undesirable manner. This deformation may be caused by the amount of force and/or composition of the sheet metal material.
One solution may involve using a stylus that is capable of rotating. Although this solution may reduce the friction between the stylus and the sheet metal material, some undesirable changes may still occur. As a result, careful selection of sheet materials for use in incremental sheet metal forming may be required.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.